The present disclosure relates to a core which may be used to form a cooling microcircuit in an airfoil portion of a turbine engine component, which core is configured to allow the formation of a central fluid outlet which has a converging/diverging configuration and to a process of utilizing the core.
The fabrication of certain turbine engine components requires the use of a thin core. The thin core may be placed between a ceramic core which is used to form a central cooling fluid passageway in an airfoil portion of the turbine engine component and a region where an external wall of the airfoil portion will be created. The use of such a core creates a cooling circuit configuration which allows for film cooling. The thin cores can be made of either ceramic or a refractory metal material.
While highly useful, there exists the reality that the cores are a product of the dies used to fabricate them. Initially, dies are made with a theorized wear factor. For example, the cores are artificially made small in order to account for the fact that as the rough material forming the core is injected into the die time and again, the cores would effectively grow. Often, this fluctuation is not as expected and the dies need to be replaced sooner to prevent the formation of cores which do not meet desired specifications. Further, as the dies wear and cores which do not meet the specifications are formed, it becomes difficult to control the outflow from the turbine engine component whose cooling microcircuit(s) are formed using the core.
To date, these problems have not been fully addressed.